Reviews of what I'm reading. Mostly in the Horror genre, but you never know.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Lights Out! - by Donald Bain - An elaborate heist thriller

3 of 5 Stars Review copy

Donald Bain has been a successful writer for more than 25 years, penning Murder She Wrote mysteries for at least that long. In 2003, when the lights went out, up and down the eastern seaboard, he came up for the idea of Lights Out! and this last year he made a point of finishing the novel.

The end result is the story of Carlton Smythe, a former electrical engineer with Power-Can, a huge Ontario power company. Smythe devises a scheme to knock out the power grid over a large portion of the east coast. But it's not just a plot of revenge, what if you could predict when the power would go out? Would crime bosses be willing to pay for that information and if so, how much?

Smythe is married into money, but wants to leave his wife for an Argentinian beauty, however if he leaves her, he won't get a dime. He needs his own cash to spend on his new love interest, so together with a current, disgruntled employee at Power-Can, he plans the big event, sells the info on when it will happen to a Toronto mob boss, who then sells the information to other crime bosses, in other cities. Knowing when the lights will go out can mean big bucks for those with criminal intent. It seems fool proof.

For the most part, I enjoyed Lights Out! but, it was a little bland. Everything was so straightforward, very few twists and turns, almost predictable. The only real surprise csme at the end and even that left mea little disappointed.

Although the official realease date forLights Out! is June 1st, 2014, I see where it's already availble from Severn House, in a variety of formats, through Amazon.com.